Miracles News

Tweet

July-September, 2016

My Journey to Ordination

by Rev. Carly D. Glasmyre, O.M.C.

I view becoming an Ordained Ministerial Counselor as a symbol of my trust in Holy Spirit. I began my journey with Pathways of Light with no intention of becoming a minister, but Spirit kept nudging me to keep going. My facilitator, Rev. Maria Felipe, suggested that I continue with the courses to grow and develop for myself, not to feel pressure to become a minister. But as I continued, I began to feel excited to share with others.

Maria encouraged me to start a blog, and I had fun writing about my ups and downs in practicing. Then, I felt guided to start a life coach training program in conjunction with my ministerial training. I felt that life coach training would broaden my scope so I could relate to and support lots of people, not just those on a spiritual path.

Though this aim had my best intentions, my ego was in charge. I began to desperately want to become a minister and life coach, and imagined myself leaving my day job to do this full time. I imagined myself becoming this great teacher that people loved and spent lots of money on. I dove into this idea of “me, me, me.” At first I was energized, and worked very hard at both my training programs.

When I reached Step 4 of the ministerial program, I actually also started working with Maria on ACIM Practitioner Courses. I was really committed. I had two life coaching clients, two POL courses, and my life coach training program, as well as my daily responsibilities and my 40-hour-a-week day job.

I was getting a little burnt out, but I still believed that this is what Spirit wanted me to do, and I kept doing it. Somehow, I’d stepped back into associating my value and my success with these outer things — becoming a minister, being a life coach, getting clients. I’d forgotten my true value, and was caught up in trying to prove my value to others out there.

But when I actually read through my Pathways of Light courses and got really clear on what they were saying, I realized that what I was doing was not what they were advocating. They did not advocate pushing and forcing and trying to make things happen. They did not advocate blindly running forward. These courses were telling me that my job was just to connect to Spirit and to rest.

It taught me that the success of my clients or students does not indicate my value. It taught me that I can show up with patience and love, that I do not need to force anyone to move faster than they’re ready. It taught me that I don’t need to work myself to the bone, that the clients that are right for me will come forward at the right time. It reminded me that Spirit knows best, and is leading me always.

It has taken trust to stop moving forward in the way my ego wanted me to, and to slow down. Through my work with Pathways of Light, I’ve realized that becoming a minister is not about making things better “out there.” It’s not about making people’s lives better, gaining success, and making tons of money. It is about healing my mind, and I do that by listening to Spirit. By choosing peace. By not manipulating my circumstances. By trusting that all things are perfectly planned by Him.

I trust that the different things I’ve gone through as I pursued my ministerial training were all perfect. Spirit was and is showing me what I truly want, which is the peace of God. I thought my life coaching and ministerial work would give me money and success, and I believed I wanted that. But I’ve found that what I really want is peace. And I could only find that out by getting really attached to the results and believing that what I actually wanted was success and recognition out there as a life coach and minister.

This ministerial program started as something I did just for myself, it transitioned into something I felt I was doing for others, and now it has become something beyond that. As I stop investing in the ego, in “making people’s lives better,” I connect to authentic healing. Spirit heals my mind, and as my mind is healed, so are others’ minds healed.

I say that I view becoming an Ordained Ministerial Counselor as a symbol of my trust in Holy Spirit because I have finally realized that this program isn’t about trusting the Holy Spirit sometimes, and trusting in my ego other times. It’s trusting in Holy Spirit all the time, in all things. It’s not a “job” or a “function” that I can pick up and put down when I please; this is a new way of living. It’s not about me “showing people the way.” It’s not about trying to prove my value out there. It’s about connecting with Spirit. It’s about showing up, no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, as a minister and teacher of God, as one who is listening and choosing peace.

Becoming an Ordained Ministerial Counselor is a symbol for me of my deep trust in Spirit and in this new way of living. It is symbolic of my choice for Holy Spirit, and the happy dream. I am deeply honored for the chance to go through the Pathways of Light courses and join the brother and sisterhood of Pathways of Light OMC’s — a team of people who really practice trusting in Holy Spirit and are healing their minds with forgiveness and love.

Pathways of Light, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Rev. Carly D. Glasmyre is a Pathways of Light minister living in Reading, Pennsylvania. Visit her website at http://www.carlyglasmyre.com or email her at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend

Printable Page

---

Tweet

July-September, 2016

The Divine Physician

by Rev. Gail Hamley, O.M.C.

In the Course we are told “The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing.” (T-8.VII.11:1) As a long-time student of the Course, I have heard this many times and the awareness to do it in everyday circumstances can be very subtle. The ‘doing it’ requires a spiritual maturation of the self into the Christ-Self where Jesus’ lessons guide us.

Each of us has our own unique path toward spiritual maturity. For me, I became aware that I like to control circumstances. Sound familiar? It is part of our DNA to try to control circumstances to obtain our idea of what would bring us happiness or love and to push away those that are painful or difficult. The problem is that attempts to control have not been successful in bringing me the happiness I (my ego) am continuously searching for.

I had been getting little inner nudges that True happiness will come when I accept what is, when I accept that God is in all things and I let go of judging whatever is happening as good or bad. I was successful at acceptance and seeing God everywhere when my days were going smoothly or even when the road got a bit bumpy. I could slip into a state of knowing that would carry me through whatever was happening.

But Spirit knew my ride was shallow so my life lessons began to deepen and suddenly I found myself in a situation that required every part of me to participate. I mean, I had to use my mind to remember all the things I have learned in the Course and elsewhere. I had to use my body to feel the sensations and emotions that my mind was telling me I believed were happening. I had to use Spirit within me to align and regulate my response to the situation.

All the while I ‘knew’ that the situation was a blessing… to me and to the person who was going through it with me. Fortunately he was a student of the Course, too, and he also could sense the blessing in the tremendous lesson we were going through together. I cannot speak for him, of course. My experience, however, brought up a lifelong fear that I was not really aware of until this experience. For anyone who has done shadow work, you will understand.

There are unconscious beliefs that motivate our activities in life. Because they are unconscious, we are not aware of them but we act them out all of the time. These motivations are our immature perceptions acquired as children to obtain safety, love and control = happiness. Because they were acquired when we were children, they do not work in the present but we don’t know that (remember they are in our subconscious) and they become our blocks rather than our ability to acquire love/happiness… a God-filled existence.  

So what do we do about this condition of unconscious/subconscious blocks? Faith is primary and foremost. To know without proof that GOD IS. 

Next, is willingness — willingness based on faith that I will stay the course of what is happening, right here, right now. Then, breathe and scan your body to see where the sensations are. Once found (i.e. my stomach was in knots and I was hot with anger) welcome the sensations — they are your allies.

Healing is mind-body-spirit after all. And then as you are aware of your internal discomfort, let go of your wish to change anything… GOD IS.

My prayer was:  Help me God to see this differently.

I had so many emotions going on that I didn’t know what to do but pray and sit in my discomfort. Suddenly a welling up of compassion filled me and I knew how to respond to the situation without changing anything outside of me. I had changed.

Fear had transformed into love and my block was removed. The Holy spirit within me did the work. All I did was call on my faith, be willing and wait.

Rev. Gail Hamley is a Pathways of Light minister living in Austin Texas. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  714-334-8176

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend

Printable Page

---

Tweet

July-September, 2016

Is There Freedom from Pain While in the Dream?

by Rev. Rosemarie Tropf, O.M.C.

As a student of ACIM for many years I have struggled with the question of whether I can reduce pain in the body through the study and practice of Spiritual lessons. I have studied Rosicrucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many new age philosophies ever since I could read. I hobbled my way through two masters degrees in religious studies to try to figure out what all that meant. I am a seeker. I have also been a seeker suffering with chronic physical pain all along this path. I have often asked myself if I should stop studying spiritual issues because maybe that’s what’s making me hurt.

I have run the gamut of what could be causing me to be the person who suffers from this amount of pain when I am the most spiritual minded person I know. I have always taught spiritual lessons to everyone I know. I don’t know how to talk about other things very often. I am not interested in other things. They feel shallow or frivolous to me. I go to movies and I love talking about movies but I only talk about the spiritual lessons we can learn in each scene. I love music but I talk about the spiritual vibration of different kinds music and how it raises or lowers our vibration. I love my kids and I always teach them the spiritual lessons I have learned to help them make their decisions in life. So why me? Why me God?

I ask, “Holy Spirit, can You help me with this?” From Chapter 8 in ACIM where I felt led to read today, “When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim of healing.” (T-8.IX.1:5)

As I suffer from spinal pain I feel like screaming, “But I want to heal the body. How can this be my mind if I can see it on the MRI and I can see it on the X-Ray? Surely magic like herbs, vitamins or surgery is just as powerful as ACIM and Holy Spirit’s Love.”

The following sentence in Chapter 8 enlightens me a bit more when it says, “Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be distorted.” (T-8.IX.1:6)

Aha! Once again I have another message that the answer is not in healing the body but in healing the mind. But as I sit in this chair with a neck brace on… again… taking a steroidal medication so I can calm the pain down so I can function in the world, I say, “Holy Spirit I am healing my mind and I want to teach what I am learning, but how can I when I have this pain that ties me down to a chair like this?”

There are other questions, there are other quotes in the Course but basically this is the pattern that goes around and around in my mind on a daily or even hourly basis. 

I truly “think” that I believe I am not the body. I truly think I know that I am a spiritual being. Maybe I don’t believe that? Now I go round and round questioning myself on how maybe I’m fooling myself and then I know ego mind has gotten in there again because that makes me feel very bad emotionally. 

Somebody once told me that my body is my classroom. I believe that because there is no more motivating factor for me than this pain in this life that drives me to find God.

I don’t worry about money, or clothes, or appearances or status. All I have ever deeply want, that I actually long for, is a connection to God. Of course, I don’t want to live in squalor or filth, I don’t want to live in an unsafe place and I do want to be surrounded by those who love me, but I don’t think about any of that like I think about pain. I always think no matter what house I live in, or what I am wearing, I can always teach the Course or meditate so I would be happy. Except that the physical pain immobilizes me so that I am limited in how much I teach and that would make me very upset to not be able to teach.

Teaching is my joy. Teaching others to awaken is my purpose. I want to awaken as well. So then another line in Chapter 8 says this: “All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce sleeping out of fear of waking.” (T-8.IX.3:2-3)

As I read the above I think, “Aha, now we are onto something here.” I spend all my waking hours, most of my life, thinking about awakening, thinking about God’s Love, thinking about enlightenment or whatever the term is at the time but, still, I must be afraid of it. I have had some instances where I felt transcended to this life and I did feel fear of losing loved ones who might think I was too kooky now to hang out with. I mean I am kooky enough to some as it is.

I have often denied God so I can sound social enough to fit in. I have often been afraid of having no pain because I was afraid others would think I had been faking it all along. Now there’s an ego pride issue that is ferocious in this instance. How much of a trap is that? 

Later in Chapter 8 in ACIM it says this: “Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the decision to wake. The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love.” (T-8.IX.5:1-2)

Replacing fear with love! Release the fear of waking! The decision to wake is a reflection of the will to love. Love is God’s Will. I know from studying the Course. I am deciding right this minute to release my fear of waking with the help of Holy Spirit. I am deciding right this minute to stop denying God to keep friends who do not believe in the spiritual part of life, (without attacking) but truth shall set them free as well.

God is my Source not me, not my friends or family but God because S/He is the Loving Presence in my life. My denial to anyone else does not matter in the dream but my denial matters if I deny it to myself and I have done that. I am making the decision now to acknowledge my Source as the Loving Presence of God. I am the flower. God is my root. I am the wave. God is the ocean. This is not theory this is truth. Today I am deciding to not analyze the darkness but to see the Light, and most of all to the be the Light. 

I Am grateful to Holy Spirit. I am grateful to Jesus for these teachings. I am grateful to Pathways for being guides for so many to follow this path.

Rev. Rosemarie Tropf is a Pathways of Light minister living in Safety Harbor, FL.
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend

Printable Page

---

Tweet

July-September, 2016

An Exercise in Trust

by Rev. Cathy Silva, O.M.C.

“Using WAZE is an exercise in trust!” I said to my husband as we allowed the GPS app to navigate us around traffic and road hazards to arrive safely at our ‘destination’ — the fund-raiser event with Pathways of Light, Gary Renard and Joe Wolfe of Spirit Light Outreach.

I think of WAZE as an app and community of drivers all wrapped up in a tool for helping each other get where we want to go.

It felt very much like ‘blind’ trust. Especially when it guided us down a road that seemed out of the way. There were moments when we started to question the app (and ourselves, I think) but then decided to just go with it.

Once we ‘arrived at our destination,’ it was such a joy to meet Robert and Mary, the founders of Pathways of Light, and share hugs with everyone. It was an inspiring day of learning, support and extending Love.

Now, I’ve had many drives before my discovery of GPS, ACIM and becoming a Pathways of Light minister where I was “on my own” or with my kids, in unknown territory and felt nervous, lost, alone and fearful. When we lived in the Miami area, there were many a times in the car going on home-school field trips when I missed an exit or took a wrong turn and ended up in an area that was a ‘questionable.’ The fearful mind would take over momentarily and all kinds of judgments about being ‘directionally challenged’ and the safety of my family would swarm around in my mind.

Then came the laughter from Alex and Patrick in the back seat, declaring, “You did it again!?” “Yes… yes I did,” I would honestly say as I remembered why we were doing this in the first place; to learn, enjoy the time together and have fun. At times I would call my husband for navigational assistance and other times I would do my best to “feel my way through it.” We always ended up finding our way back on track and safely arrived at our destination.

Following God’s Plan

“Once you accept His plan as the one function that you would fulfill, there will be nothing else Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort. He will go before you making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it. You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As that was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God’s guarantee will hold against all obstacles, for it rests on certainty and not contingency. It rests on you. And what can be more certain than a Son of God? (T-20.IV.8:4-12)

Answering the Call

The Call to become a Teacher of Love and an ordained minister have been very much the same exercise in trust. More accurately it’s required The Development of Trust the course outlines in the Manual for Teachers. (M-4.I.A)

Many times in life I have felt Called. A Call for me is Holy Spirit’s way of communicating to my true Self Who, more than anything, desires to play my part in God’s Plan. The Call can begin as a ‘feeling’ or ‘inner nudge’ to do something or go somewhere. I do my best to listen, follow the inner guidance and trust that there’s some role for me there.

Sometimes I ignore that feeling and let the questions, uncertainty, fear or my own stubbornness delay me. Then the ‘nudge’ becomes more like a loving ‘shove.’ I might feel more of a sense of urgency followed by seeing and hearing messages that help me refocus and move forward. When I decide to Accept that Call and take a step in the direction, I find a path shows up that leads me toward my desired ‘destination.’ Only I realize it’s not so much a destination but a perfectly timed and designed Path Home to the realization of Love’s Presence.

“The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance.” (T-Introduction 1:1-7)

I’ll be honest. The Call to become an ordained minister and Teacher of Love felt huge for me. Deep within me I knew it was what I am meant to do. I wanted to be used to teach Love… pure, unconditional Love. The Call was so strong and it was super scary! Many times I felt alone and questioned whether I could handle what felt like was such a big responsibility. My kids had left the nest and my coaching business was finally beginning to show signs of financial success, so I questioned whether it was the responsible thing to do.

Once I made the decision to Accept the Call and Follow God’s Plan as my focus, I had to suspend all doubt and remember that I can trust WAZE/GPS app a.k.a. Holy Spirit (IGS Inner Guidance System) in my mind to guide me. I began to listen and respond to the intuitive hits to make a call or go to a website or reach out to someone, without questioning why. These steps led me to this Pathways of Light community and ministerial training. I was ordained last November and have now completed the Relationship Enhancement Counselor Training.

I believe that where there is a Call, there is a Way. In my own journey there is positive evidence that this is true.

I continue the journey of developing that Trust and allowing the ministry to unfold. I’ve had to release any ideas of how I think it’s ‘supposed’ to look and simply respond daily to what shows up. It doesn’t feel like a huge responsibility anymore, because I’m not on this journey alone. I always have my handy dandy IGS (Inner Guidance System) and a community of family and friends along the way to enjoy being with as we learn and grow together.

Rev. Cathy Silva is a Pathways of Light minister living in Punta Gorda, FL.
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Website: http://www.cathysilva.org

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend

Printable Page

---

Back to main page of Miracles News.

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.